Of all the books I’ve read and blogged on over the years, it’s no surprise I have enjoyed some more than others. There were some where going into reading them I didn’t exactly know if I was going to like it or not. In most cases I did but they were a few where I didn’t for a variety of reasons. Then there’s the book War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers by Benjamin Teitelbaum. I was given it as a gift a while ago and when I got it I said to myself, what’s this about? I tucked it into the back of my bookshelf and recently rediscovered it and decided to give it a read.

As when I first got the book, upon finishing it I asked myself, what’s this about? It is a story of the life of Steve Bannon, a man who has done everything from being Chief Strategist to President Donald Trump to a part-owner of the sitcom Seinfeld. Where it tells much of his life’s story it is not a biography per se, rather it touches on many of his past events and activities that led him to the inner circle of the White House and his belief in Traditionalism. Despite the ambiguity that clouded me as I read the book, I always manage to find takeaways from every book I read.

Traditionalism – Prior to reading the book, I had never heard the term Traditionalism before, and even as I got into the book, I started looking up the term online from various sources to try to wrap my head around it. From what I gathered it is a belief in traditional, conservative values with a deeper, spiritual meaning. I think.

At Cambridge Analytica – Beyond Traditionalism, of the events in his life referenced include his time in the Navy and the fact that he had a role at Cambridge Analytica. This was something that was a surprise to me because where I had heard about Cambridge Analytica in the news and it’s relation to Facebook, I never heard about any tie to Bannon. With the controversy around the firm and its involvement with targeting voters in the 2016 election, someone like myself who considers himself informed thought I should have been aware of this.

Riding the Tiger – This is actually the second time I heard of this tale, which is taken from a book by Julius Evola of the same name. The tale is (and I am loosely paraphrasing it) of a man who was threatened by a tiger and was unable to defeat it, so he decided to jump on its back and ride on it until the tiger was too tired to attack him. The first time I heard this was from the book No Hero which I recently read and wrote about.

War for Eternity was an interesting book, though I’m undecided as to whether or not I recommend it. If you are looking for a read outside of what you may normally read this might be a book to consider.

As I giveaway all books I read I decided to give this one away to the general public. I placed it – as you can see in the accompanying photo – in a seat back pocket on an Amtrak train from Milwaukee to Chicago. Hopefully somebody picked it up and decided to give it a try.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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